Banning Tobacco Price Promotions, Smoking Related Beliefs And Behavior

Tobacco companies advertise in magazines, promote their products in convenience stores and market their brands through websites and social networks. Many of these tobacco industries get publicity and attract more young customers when using the newly in media to promote their products. Many of these tobacco companies don’t understand that tobacco advertising is a huge public health issue that increases smoking. Tobacco company advertising and promoting is the start of the use of tobacco among teenagers. Now, these media and magazine advertisements about cigars have caused teenagers to be exposed to cigarette advertising. Not only that but also these teenagers find ads appealing and also increase their desire to smoke. Cigarette companies spent about $8.37 billion on advertising and promotional expenses in the United States in 2011.

Due to the serious health issues surrounding smoking, the government imposes laws and tax increases to act as deterrents to tobacco smoking. These pose a serious threat to present and future marketing activities of the industry. Governments worldwide have approved bans on any advertisement that has the affect of promoting a tobacco product, including electronic and print media advertising. This affects companies marketing within the tobacco industry, on two levels. Anti-smoking organisations claim that advertising for smoking encourages people to start consuming tobacco products. Therefore, bans on advertising affect the industry’s marketing activities by reducing their

Over the last few decades, tobacco and nicotine prevention efforts have risen to an all time high. Prevention efforts focus on education to the public of the negative effects on one’s health when using tobacco and nicotine products, as well as with pleas to healthcare policymakers to increase restrictions on product manufacturing and sales. One policy effort growing in popularity in the United States is called Tobacco 21, which proposes to raise the legal age of purchase for consumers of tobacco and nicotine products to 21 years of age (Farber, Pakhale, & Neptune, 2016). Farber, Pakhale, and Neptune (2016) state that 90% of tobacco and nicotine users begin smoking before the age of 18, with 99% of users starting before the age of 26. Lower smoking cessation rates are associated with earlier ages of initiation and the tobacco industry is known to target youth in advertisement of these products lending to the early age of initiation. The tobacco industry themselves admit that increasing the age allowed for purchase to exclude youth would substantially effect their sales. Tobacco 21 laws also deter adolescents from gaining tobacco or nicotine products from friends 18 to 21 years of age, which is the most likely age group to supply younger teens. With this knowledge, placing tighter restrictions on consumers younger than 21 years of age, using the Tobacco 21 policy, may deter tobacco and nicotine initiation in hopes to prevent individual use at all in the future (Farber

If 90% of United States smokers could have another chance to redo it, they reported that they would not even have their first puff that initiated their tobacco addiction (Winickoff, Gottlieb, and Mello 2014). The Tobacco 21 bill is a fairly new legislation and already it has shown a decline in underage smokers as a result of its implementation. The results of the survey presented that the public opinion was largely accepting and supportive of the bill. The main argument against the bill is the harm that will come to retailers of tobacco products. Correspondingly, the argument is proven inaccurate and in favor of the bill. The past has shown the improved outcome of the country from the raise in the minimum alcohol age, and researchers regard

History has proven that government penalties, in the form of taxes, deter smoking. The 2000 U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, Reducing Tobacco Use, found that raising tobacco-product prices decreases the prevalence of tobacco use, and tobacco tax increases produce significant long-term improvements in health. From its review of existing research, the report concluded that raising tobacco taxes is one of the most effective tobacco prevention and control strategies (7). Along with price increases, mass-media campaigns and smoking bans have made cigarette smoking pretty much unacceptable in today’s society. “Today, approximately 22 percent of adults age twenty-two and older are smokers, compared with 33 percent in 1979” (Thorpe 1440). It is clear, from these examples, the use of penalties to deter the unhealthy behavior of smoking is a successful intervention.

In the United States today, more than forty six million Americans are addicted to cigarettes. More people have died due to cigarette smoking than from narcotic drugs, World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam War combined (Bailey 1). The annual death toll for cigarette smoking is more than four-hundred thousand Americans a year, and is the number-one preventable cause of death in the United States. If Americans are aware of the lethal effects of smoking, why is it still so popular? Guy Smith, a Phillip Morris Tobacco Company executive, claims that their research shows that advertising is the top reason people start smoking (Bailey 34). Most people will argue that this is not true because the do not like to be “sold” and

The negative health effects of tobacco use have been well established. Tobacco use has been shown to cause acute and chronic respiratory disease, heart disease, many types of cancer, and is the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the United States, causing an estimated 443,000 deaths per year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2004). As the dangers of smoking have become better understood, reducing the number of people who smoke has become a major focus for those interested in public health. Efforts to restrict the advertisement and sale of tobacco, implement public smoking bans, and educate citizens through public service announcements have all had a sizeable effect on smoking rates in the U.S. In Fact, over

With over 7,000 chemicals placed in cigarettes and other tobacco products, it’s a highly addictive substance that is, without a doubt, a very difficult activity to cease. With enough true information, enough pressure on tobacco companies with companies or individuals that can afford to fight against tobacco corporations, and with enough resources and support I believe that as a country and as a species, we can irradiate the use of tobacco, which in turn will decrease so many devastating yet preventable diseases, increasing healthier lives for ourselves, our loved ones, and future generations. It will be a very difficult uphill battle but with the decrease in consumption of tobacco products (in 1965 around 42.4% of people consumed tobacco products and in 2014 its down to 16.8%) over the years (however gradual) I feel that we are on the right path to stop the proaction and consumption of tobacco products. Healthy People 2020 conducted frameworks, goals, objectives, and solutions/potential solutions to bring the consumption of tobacco products to an all time low within 10 year goal increments. Some of the Healthy People 2020 solutions to continue to decrease the percentage of people using

Public health strategies this was based on strong evidence showing that tobacco control is cost- effective compared to other health interventions. It involved measures on price and taxes, exposure to tobacco smoke, the contents of tobacco products, product disclosures, packaging and labeling, education, communication, training, and public awareness, tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship and reducing tobacco dependence.

Each day, more than 5,200 people under the age of eighteen smoke their first cigarette, and approximately 3,100 youth and young adults become daily smokers (Youth Tobacco Smoking Rates Putting Millions At Risk Of Premature Death. n. pag.). These numbers are unusually high and are most likely due to the excessive amount of tobacco advertisement. Today in the United States tobacco companies spend more than eleven billion dollars on tobacco advertising, targeting mostly younger generations of people. Some may argue that this type of advertisement is beneficial in the U.S because it brings in billions of dollars in revenue that can be used for many different purposes. However many are concerned about young adults and

The use of tobacco products is just one of many factors that influence the price of insurance. Unlike some other deciding factors of insurance prices, people choose to use tobacco products. There is plenty of information about the dangers of tobacco products. Tobacco products’ packaging warns that use of the products will have negative effects on a person’s health. There are also numerous public service announcements circulating on television and the internet warning people to stay away from tobacco. Many systems are also available, often paid for by insurance companies, that will help a person quit using tobacco. These vary widely, from patches that a person wears, to nicotine gum. The increase in the cost of insurance for tobacco users

Studies have identified a greater contingency of persistent smokers in those who currently reside with a smoker or have a relative who smokes (Moyse, 2009). Moyse (2009) states peer pressure is particularly influential for young people who may hold the opinions of others in high esteem. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] (2015) states that tobacco companies in the United States spend more than $9.6 billion in tobacco advertisements. More than 50% of their advertising is spent on targeting youth, such as through the development of candy and fruit-flavored nicotine vapors for e-cigarettes (CDC, 2015). According to the Hawaii Department of Health [DOH] (n.d.) the number of U.S. youth who had never smoked a cigarette but used electronic cigarettes tripled between 2011 and

Although tobacco and alcohol products differ, they share a high level of addiction and are “among the top causes of preventable deaths in the United States” ( U.S Department of Health & Human Services, 2007 ). As stated in Controversies In Contemporary Advertising by Kim Bartel Sheehan (2014), “tobacco and alcohol advertising are probably two of the most thoroughly examined and criticized categories of all advertised products” ( p.177 ). Yet, advertisers continue to heavily invest on promoting these products considering the “total spending on wine, beer, and spirits was almost $2 billion” with another “$10 billion spent on tobacco advertising globally in 2008” ( Sheehan, 2014, p.177 ). In response to the advertisers selling efforts and ad spendings,

The tobacco industry is important to the economy. In 1991, worldwide tobacco sales exceeded $59.8 billion and in 1992 the industry was rated as one of the top one hundred advertisers (Pechmann and Ratneshwar, 1994). However, there are high prices to pay - socially, economically, and personally - as a result of this industry. Annual mortality figures indicate that cigarette smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States. An estimated 390,000 people die each year of smoke related illnesses, which is greater than the combined mortality for cocaine, crack, AIDS, homicide, suicide, and alcohol abuse (Botvin, G., Baker, Botvin, E., Dusenbury, Cardwell, and Diaz, 1993).

The purpose of this paper is to provide researched information on the how consumers continue to risk their health through the consumption of cigarettes regardless of hazard warnings and how the government continues to implement increased taxation to economically affect those consumers. In today’s society, there are many more consumers that are becoming health conscious compared to consumers of decades before, but there are still those that are addicted to tobacco products making it more difficult to embrace their own health. In order to make the world smoke-free, the U.S. government is taking a stand on the economical side by increasing excise taxes hoping to encourage those with a tobacco addiction to become more money as well